What I Learned as a Church Planter 10: Prepare for the End (Pt. 2)

This post has been republished by the Exponential Network

---

Save at least 4 months of living expenses
You never know if/when the church you’re planting will shut down. I know it may seem counter-productive to plan for its demise before you’ve even begun, and some church planters would much rather live on the edge believing the lack of a safety net actually gives you a stronger drive to succeed, but that attitude is sort of like playing third base without a cup. I played baseball with a guy that had this same attitude. He refused to wear a cup at third base believing the threat to his manhood gave him a quicker first step… and then one day it didn’t. An unexpected short hop took him down for the count. This is the danger you face as a church planter… you never know when the short hop is coming.

Saving at least 4 months of living expenses is as close as you can get to wearing a cup. I wish that this was something I had done deliberately, that I had the foresight to plan this way. I didn’t. However, my wife and I did sort of stumble into this reality. For some reason or another–perhaps the impending birth of our daughter–we started spending money a little differently and ended up saving several months worth of income. This has helped us in a few different ways on the back side of church planting.*

1. Time to decompress: I had a few months to simply rest, to be, and not really worry about anything financially–especially as it related to my family’s well being. I wasn’t pressed to get a job or even start looking. Instead I had the time to sit back and reflect on what happened and what I’d learned. This was been an invaluable period of time for me. This was a wonderful gift not only for me but my family.

   In talking with other church planters that have had to deal with the trauma of closing down a church, this is often a luxury they cannot afford. The lack of finances get in the way of properly dealing with this loss, this grief, and most of the time church planters end up completely leaving the ministry. Most do this not because they’ve lost their calling but because they’re pressed financially and ultimately burnt out. 

   Here’s a hard truth to consider: When you shut down, you’re not guaranteed severance. I was given a month and a half of pay when we made the decision to shut down. That’s 45 days… which if you’re banking on severance alone to give you the proper space to decompress, it’s not enough.

2. Time to reshape your rhythms: I have found that on the other side of church planting/pastoring, many of the daily rhythms in my life were completely out of whack. (It took me at least 45 days to simply rest and get back on some sort of normal sleep schedule.) After exiting the decompression phase, I spent a great deal of time allowing life to settle into new rhythms, paying attention to those rhythms, honing those rhythms, and realizing what’s been missing and what’s still missing. For me there are 7 daily and 3 weekly rhythms that I am working on to make sure are present because they are vital not only to my well being but to my family… what I’m finding is that they’re pretty simple when you have the time to pay attention to them.

   My daily rhythms: running, lectionary, journaling, reading, a walk with my daughter, time with my wife, and writing.
   My weekly rhythms: church, group-life, family day.

   These aren’t rocket science. I have to diligently work to re-make these as fixtures in my normal rhythm of life. I wouldn’t have the space to do this if I had had to jump straight back into the job market. This is necessary on the back end of church planting and I believe it helps you move back towards a healthy view of reality.

3. Time to dream again: When the church closes down, the greatest dreams you’ve ever had go down with it. It’s hard to give yourself permission to dream. It’s made exponentially more difficult when you field the barrage of questions from well meaning friends and family, “What’s next?!” To get to this place once again is no easy task, and it takes time. If you have prepared your family financially for a period of time post church plant, you have given yourself an amazing gift: the ability and space to begin dreaming again. To give yourself the permission to dream once again, however, will not come easy–it certainly wasn’t for me. But you have given yourself the space, and the more space you afford yourself, the better off you will be.

Saving 4 months worth of income sounds like an impossible task for some, however I would like to remind you that it is possible. I lived in the second most expensive city in the country and was able to make this a possibility. If I can do it, so can you.

My hope and prayer is that you never have to go through the trauma of closing down a church, but if you do I hope these few learnings can help ease a bit of the trauma and help you walk well into what’s next.

* It also helped that my wife is a working professional, and helped in great ways to support our family during this time.